Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Nor-Ski Runs belonged to the city of Decorah and was run through its parks and recreation department, on U.S. 52 about a mile and a half north of Iowa 9.1
Read the whole historyTimeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Nor-Ski Runs Ski Area, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Nor-Ski Runs Ski Area
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Closed 1958 · 45.6 mi away · WisconsinLa Crosse's first ski hill, on bluffland along what is now Highway 33 just east of the city, used from the late 1930s until 1958.
- Opened 1971 · 51.2 mi away · IowaA ski area just north of Waverly that opened as Ski Villa in 1971, became Oak Highlands in 1981 and closed in the late 1980s.
- 1972–1980 · 56.9 mi away · WisconsinA small rope-tow ski area about a mile west of Boscobel that ran from 1972 to 1980.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 3 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Nor-Ski Runs belonged to the city of Decorah and was run through its parks and recreation department, on U.S. 52 about a mile and a half north of Iowa 9. It opened in 1960 with 250 feet of vertical, a year after a Waterloo Courier story described a skiers' shelter house as a Decorah dream. In 1978 it had four rope tows and a T-bar.1
Its end is hard to date. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project puts the close at 2002 with a question mark, then notes several mentions in 2004, none in 2006 and 2007, and one in 2008. Skiresort.info lists it as shut down. The project holds photographs of the hill taken in 2023.1,2,3
Sources for this history (3)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Iowa
- 2skiresort.info · Nor-Ski Runs – Decorah
- 3Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Nor-Ski Runs pictures (2023, Dale Henkes)
Photos
No photographs of Nor-Ski Runs Ski Area we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Nor-Ski Runs Ski Area, in their own words.
Facts
Location
43.3161° N · 91.8208° W · Iowa
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1960 · the year it closed is not yet collected
Closed for good; the year it closed is not yet collected. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain